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The Secret API of Banks

gduverger.com

91–100 of 257 posts

Re: The Secret API of Banks

#91
I talk to (about) a person a week who wants to create a new US bank. Some are pursuing a de novo charter, some are buying a bank, and some are a quasi bank on top of another bank.

The real blocker here is the Fed won't grant new charters and often won't transfer charters. I'm hoping this will change in the next few years and we can get some real competition.

(Disclosure: my job is making APIs for US Banks.)

Re: The Secret API of Banks

#92
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd be pretty neat to give a bank your public PGP key and then they could send you encrypted emails with more details.

For the 0.001% of Nanking customers who understand PGP, let alone who can set it up. Yes, I’d love it too, but until PGP is more user friendly for the masses, I wouldn’t hold my breath on any bank bothering.

Oh I agree. I think it will never happen. But as a data point, Facebook has the option to add it: https://www.facebook.com/notes/protect-the-graph/securing-em...

So, it's not too far fetched.

Re: The Secret API of Banks

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - On-restaurant-table credit card swipe rather than taking the card away and entering tip later. Many places overseas do this almost universally. This isn't a problem you can solve by changing the banking industry. This is a point-of-sale problem.

I disagree entirely. The problem is that the US banking industry permits this state of affairs. They should require updated, at-table point-of-sale devices within a reasonable timeframe to be able to continue to take credit cards.

Migration has a cost. Many small vendors have razor-thin margins.

Re: The Secret API of Banks

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree entirely. The problem is that the US banking industry permits this state of affairs. They should require updated, at-table point-of-sale devices within a reasonable timeframe to be able to continue to take credit cards.

Migration has a cost. Many small vendors have razor-thin margins.

Then have the banks fund it out of the savings from reduced stolen card fraud.

Re: The Secret API of Banks

#96
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure I heard you right. Did you say you can build a custom app but still use IFTTT? Here's a link to http://Zapier.com

I downvoted you because you seem to be implying that programmers shouldn't use IFTTT. There's nothing wrong with IFTTT if it meets your needs.

Not original commenter, I used to use and like them, but at one point they changed all URLs to use their shortener (I was using it to archive all links I post on FB into an Evernote note). Great, they want to do more analytics and they're making sure all URLs in content they're supposed to be just plumbing will die with them, very customer friendly.

And then there's this: https://blog.pinboard.in/2016/03/my_heroic_and_lazy_stand_ag...

Re: The Secret API of Banks

#97
post #71
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you need to be vetted and approved before being allowed access to some of people's most private and secure data. Why is this a problem exactly?

My problem is that it does not even allow access to your own account. Nobody has a problem with access to others ' accounts being regulated. I just want to do whatever I want with my own account.

If you are allowed to access your data, then you can grant that access to third parties (pass along the API token). I happen to think that is great, but we live in a time where the idea of my sharing my Facebook account with an app is considered a problem, because it has a list of my friends.

My financial history contains a lot of metadata about third parties.

This is exactly the intersection between this overlay strict interpretation of privacy and my right to share my side of the data with third parties.

Re: The Secret API of Banks

#98
You may want to try plaid. They've integrated every major US bank(and some CUs) either using bank api or scraping their web pages.

You can get not only transactions, but also account info, balances and enough info to perform charges/payments(e.g. ACH routing/account numbers). Api is no-nonsence and they got decent dashboard.

Its paid service, but they allow 100 accounts for free(you need to apply though). To check what are major banks they support, you can visit their status page: https://status.plaid.com/

Re: The Secret API of Banks

#99
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From GP: > API is going to be nearly impossible for the common person to use Reading what you are replying to and making an argument against that rather than a hypothetical straw man that GP didn’t imply or mean will get you further.

Apologies, I misread it as him complaining that small, one man startups will not be able to compete due to the necessary regulatory burden.

More importantly, the original post, the one you responded to somewhat arrogantly, stated:

> This is very clever but makes me sad. It’s 2018 and the best, cleanest way of monitoring and storing my own transactions programmatically is by scraping an email.

It would seem that, outside of Germany, which has FinTS, the cleanest way to monitor my own transactions programmatically may well remain email scraping.

Re: The Secret API of Banks

#100
post #91

I talk to (about) a person a week who wants to create a new US bank. Some are pursuing a de novo charter, some are buying a bank, and some are a quasi bank on top of another bank. The real blocker here is the Fed won't grant new charters and often won't transfer charters. I'm hoping this will change in the next few years and we can get some real competition. (Disclosure: my job is making APIs for US Banks.)

Any idea why this is the situation?

What about doing a state-by-state charter?

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